When squiggly beasts attack (more squigglies 23/7)

[Will Vale]

Hi folks,

[edit] Some more Tyranids have appeared

I bought a little Games Workshop game a couple of weeks ago about Space Marine scouts being eaten in the jungle by horrible Genestealers - it's called Lost Patrol and is a rework of a much earlier game, only this time with more plastic models in the box. Two weeks later, or thereabouts I've finished building, painting and photographing the jungle denizens, although not the scouts yet. They are basically Giger's Aliens with six arms I've tried a couple of schemes for Genestealers and Tyranids before and decided this time I wanted something really loud.

I think this is the biggest 28mm unit I've painted yet - 12 models! - and I also did six "infestation markers" to go with them:

I had to be very strict about batch painting - no going on to the next step until the previous one had been applied to all the models. Pretty gruelling at times (count those claws) but it seems to get the job done and at least I could sit in front of the telly while working.

Here are some close-ups of a few of the models:

(click for bigger/more)

and here they are lurking in the jungle:

I have (a small number of) other Tyranids which these have inspired me to put together, and I think I'm going to try and do the same paint scheme on those as well.

For reference, they were airbrushed with mixes of Flat Flesh, Flat Red and Hull Red (all Tamiya) and highlighted with GW paints before being glazed with Tamiya Clear Red. The carapace was drybrushed and everything else brush painted apart from the final varnish coats.

The bases are grit and sand painted Dryad Bark, drybrushed and then I added a mix of Woodland Scenics stuff over the top, set with diluted PVA and Klear. The plants are laser cut paper from Wako in Japan, they're about a thousand yen a (smallish) sheet but I've used less than 10% of two sheets so far so I think they're fairly cost effective nonetheless.

Thanks for looking!

Will

[rockpopandchips]

Very nice work indeed and the coloures look fantastic.

[Hunter Rose]

Really great paint on these Will, like rock said, the colours are superb

[Darby]

Not my genre but they look very nice indeed.

[whitestar12chris]

Absolutely cracking paint job Will, well done.

All the best Chris

[Madhatter]

gorgeously revolting looking creatures that wouldn't be out of place in a sic-fi horror flick. I really like them! As always, your paint work is sublime

Si

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the kind comments folks! The colours felt like a bit of risk but it was good to try and push away from my usual safer choices

Cheers,

Will

[Artie]

WOW......they lok excellent...not my kind of modelling, but terrific looking little crawlers...

Now that no one's reading this, i can tell you for sure they look like my wife before her morning coffe....

Cheers...

[Finnthedude]

Very nicely done. Lost Patrol is a great game and the one tip to winning it is: don't be the scouts.

It's an unusual colour scheme but I think it works really well - is that Alien or Predator inspired blood I see? Also like the Cthulhu headed stealer in the first pic.

I love 40k me, shame it's gone so expensive now.

Finnthedude.

[Will Vale]

Thanks

@Finnthedude, I agree, that's a great tip. I'm told that one of the customers at my local GW got to the last tile with one scout before dying, at home we have yet to make it halfway and are considering giving the scouts some bonuses to their die rolls.

It is a surprisingly nuanced game despite the one-sided-ness, there are a lot of interesting choices to make as the scouts.

The green blood is indeed Predator-inspired, if you look at the infestation with the big leaves you can see where I tried to make it look like blood had splashed, pooled and run down the leaf but I think there's not enough contrast between the greens for it to read clearly. I'm wondering about getting some fluorescent green - I think Vallejo do that - to pep it up.

40K is dear but GW have been making (small) steps towards reducing the price - e.g. the Start Collecting boxes they introduced for 40K and AoS are pretty good value, as are some of the boxed games. As a modeller I'm luckily not forced to collect things that work well in game, and I usually feel like I get my money's worth from the building and painting even if a given kit doesn't seem to contain much plastic for the money.

YMMV of course. I hope they manage to find a balance rather than price themselves out of the market, while keeping the manufacturing in the UK.

Will

[Andy Moore]

Stunning result as always Will. I love the colour choices you've gone with. I hadn't noticed the blood splatters until Finn mentioned them above. They're a really nice touch.

Andy

[eddiesolo]

Outstanding work, superb paint job!

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the kind comments, I will see if I can get a better picture of the blood on the other side of the "ballchinian" Genestealer I only did 3 injured ones, partly because I didn't know if it would work but also because wounded Tyranids might lose their mystique!

die rolls

This is distressingly apt. *rattle rattle* "Oh..." *removes dead scout*.

Edit: Talking of scouts, what chapter to paint them? Ultramarines (blue) would stand out, as would Imperial Fists (yellow) but the only marines I've painted to date are a handful of Dark Angels. I guess dark green and cream would look OK, or maybe with jungle camo trousers? The scout models are quite vanilla but could be augmented a little to tie them to one chapter or another.

Will

[Finnthedude]

Edit: Talking of scouts, what chapter to paint them? Ultramarines (blue) would stand out, as would Imperial Fists (yellow) but the only marines I've painted to date are a handful of Dark Angels. I guess dark green and cream would look OK, or maybe with jungle camo trousers? The scout models are quite vanilla but could be augmented a little to tie them to one chapter or another.

Will

Imperial Fists have a history of fighting 'nids on a jungle world (Miral II) so they'd be a good choice for this game.

Finnthedude.

[Will Vale]

That would mean painting yellow though! Although they are cool, as are the yellow/red/grey successor chapter I forget the name of. Something Scorpions?

I quite fancy Ultramarines too, bland though they are I found a box of Scout Bikes in the cupboard which were a Fathers' Day present a couple of years back so I'd like to make sure whatever chapter it is can also use those.

Here are a couple of better pictures of the other battle-damaged 'stealers:

(click for bigger)

A mix of Scorpion Green, Tamiya Clear Green and Nurgle's Rot (the latter likely superfluous) dabbed on and then spattered on by blasting air past a loaded paintbrush.

Cheers,

Will

[HansReggelsen]

While I think the Tyrranids and Genestealers as characters are disgu.. desgus.. disgo.. ...Not my cup of tea - I must say that you have brought out the best - or worst - in them.

They are not something I would like to meet in a dark alley on the way home on a saturday night, where you've had one to many drinks because the girl you've had a good eye to all evening went with another bloke and you just stood there caught in the rain and there weren't any pinacolado and.....

Anyway - my favourites amongst the 40K races are Space Wolves (I am a Dane! ) or Tau (For the greater Good)

Cheers

Hans J

[Will Vale]

I like your reasoning, and I would love to paint some Space Wolves one day! I really want to like the Tau but while I love some of the models (stealth suits, infantry, Kroot) I'm not a fan of the other battle suits and especially not the flyers.

My daughter describes Tyranids as "like really gross, but really cool" which seems fair

Cheers,

Will

[HansReggelsen]

Always listen to one's kids!

My sons dabbled in Tyrranids and Orcs for a while, but - alas - I 've lost them to - dare I say it - PC Gaming!

And as much as I would like to play some games with them I don't because: 1) they are way, way better than I am, and 2) (and please don't laugh out too much) I get sick - like in carsickness - watching the games!

I've tried, but haven't played a game since Spyro the Dragon!

So I keep on building models instead - they don't move around too much!

Cheers

Hans J

[spruecutter96]

This is some really excellent work!

Thanks for sharing.

Chris.

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the kind words!

I have just acquired some Vallejo Fluorescent Green so I'll try that to make the blood even louder

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

More squiggly beasts have appeared. These are the extra bits from the Tyrannocyte (living drop pod) kit - a handful of spore mines and a Mucolid spore. My understanding is that these float around the battlefield and explode with a horrible wet bang when they get near something.

(click for bigger)

The little ones were pretty quick to do, but the big one took a while since there were so many folds to highlight. I opted to keep the airbrush blend on the long tentacles and just added a bit of detail at either end.

I'm pleased with the result despite it not quite being the quick win I was looking for. Even better, they seem to fit well with the Genestealers so hopefully the loud red scheme will be applicable to most of the available Tyranids.

I'm very tempted to get the "Start Collecting Tyranids" box as that has Gargoyles, Warriors and a Hive Tyrant, but I should probably finish the weird looking Tyrannocyte first.

Cheers,

Will

[Hunter Rose]

Individually they're really great but all together like that they look amazing! Nice one Will

[Will Vale]

Thanks, it's quite exciting as I don't usually get this far with a single painting project. The lure of *a painted army* is quite strong and I've actually just started making a little scenery piece for them too.

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

I finished my scenery piece, with which I'm quite pleased:

and took a picture which shows how little you really need to have fun with some models:

To make this, I used:

1 piece of black velvet, actually a wrapping cloth for my camera.

1 pot plant I stole from the living room when Micky wasn't looking.

1 small piece of scenery as shown above.

1 offcut of aquarium plant

2 space marines

10 genestealers, although some ended up out of shot

plus some bits of cardboard to block light and so on. It was all set up on the corner of my desk and lit by the office window.

Cheers,

Will

[Finnthedude]

The lure of *a painted army* is quite strong

Do it, you know you want to

I've got 4 40K armies that I've had since I was in my teens (Space Wolves, My own scheme Eldar scheme, Tyranids and finally Orcs) Still got them all and add the odd figure to them now and then although none of them have seen a desktop battle since the 90's.

The little Death World scene looks amazing, don't hold out much hope for the brother Terminators though

Finnthedude.